Aug201030

Staff

A record 96 minority coaches – including 43 former players (complete list below) – took part in this summer’s Bill Walsh NFL Minority Coaching Fellowship.

Former Washington Redskins tackle Chris Samuels (2000-09) was among the participants. Samuels, who recently retired from the NFL, spent the summer with the Redskins as he pursues a career in coaching.

“Everything was great,” says Samuels (left). “I learned from a great group of coaches who are experienced in the NFL. I was in a great situation to learn how to coach football. I have always known that I wanted to coach football once I retired. This is always what I wanted to do, so now I’m just going to the second phase of my life.”

Cincinnati Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis, who earned NFL Coach of the Year honors from the Associated Press last season, interned with the San Francisco 49ers (1988) and Kansas City Chiefs (1991).

“My opportunity with the fellowship was a great exposure to new ideas,” says Lewis. “It was just so valuable to coach alongside the San Francisco 49ers staff on a daily basis, seeing the quality and expertise that go into every aspect of NFL coaching. The things I learned then that I still apply today are most notably in the areas of scheduling and attention to detail. I hope the coaches that we’ve hosted in the fellowship learned some of the same valuable things from our staff.”

Lewis is one of four current NFL head coaches – Raheem Morris (Tampa Bay Buccaneers), Lovie Smith (Chicago Bears) and Mike Tomlin (Pittsburgh Steelers) are the others – who are graduates of the program.

The program, which was named after the man who conceived the idea – late Pro Football Hall of Fame head coach Bill Walsh – exposes talented minority college coaches to the methods and philosophies of summer NFL training camps. Walsh introduced the concept in 1987 when he brought a group of minority coaches into his San Francisco 49ers’ training camp. The program has mentored more than 1,500 minority coaches through the years.

Newly hired Buffalo Bills offensive coordinator and running backs coach Curtis Modkins participated in the program with the Philadelphia Eagles (1997), Dallas Cowboys (1999) and Pittsburgh Steelers (2005). During Modkins’ internship with Dallas in 1999, he established a relationship with current Bills head coach Chan Gailey, who was the Cowboys head coach at the time.

“It’s a great program,” says Modkins. “Obviously it has meant the world to me. It gave me an opportunity to first of all learn a lot of football and put me in a network of people in this league that eventually gave me an opportunity to do what I’m doing today. It’s a critical program and I think what the league is doing is great.”